Pearson, one of the largest education publishers, and Google have joined forces to bring colleges a new – and free – learning management system.

The platform called OpenClass has standard course-management tools along with social-networking and community tools. In addition, the solution leverages Google Apps Education a popular email, calendar, document-sharing service along with the ability for instructors to import materials from e-books to YouTube videos.

Blackboard, Moodle and a handful of others have 80% of the current learning management system (LMS) market. The entrance of a Pearson/Google solution will be one to watch.